I know that is is probably a troll but i just had to reply to this.
I recently considered buying a new computer and compared several offers on the X86 side and on the Apple side. PCs are usually only cheaper than Macs if you buy the components and assemble them yourself. (Assuming of course that you do not account for the time you need to do that)
Of course nearly every computer reseller (like Dell or Gateway) has boxes which are cheaper than even the low-end Macs. But if you try to assemble a machine that has similar features than a Powermac for example you usually end up paying nearly the same price. This is especially true for Laptops.
The only two brands who had laptops with similar features than than a Powerbook 15'' that were cheaper were Acer (with the Travelmate 803) and Asus (M6N). Every other brand (including Dell and HP) were similiar priced once you configured them to include the same features as the powerbook (80 GB harddisc, 5120 MB ram, radeon 9600, 15'' 16:9 display, DVD burner).IBM even exceeded the price of the powerbook by nearly 1500 Euros. (I am comparing german prices, ymmv)
It is possible to get a pc which is cheaper than the cheapest Apple box but it is much harder to get a brand name pc whith the same features as an Apple box and still be cheaper.
If I have read the Article correctly the BSA was accompanied by armed marshals and therefore must have had a search warrant for the offices of Ernie Ball. What I do not understand is why the BSA even could get such warrants.
In Germany where I live only the district attorney can issue such warrants and only the police or federal agencies may search buildings using that warrant. The person(s) who made the allegations may not even be present during the search.
And since shrink-wrap licences are (still) illegal in germany the BSA would not even get the district attorney to issue such a warrant since only common contractual law applies to software purchases.
So they can go to my office but I don't have to let them in.
Giving some pressure group federal powers seems a bit odd to me.
(high altitude >1,000 meters or >3,280 feet above sea level)
So in order to do correct benchmarking on notebooks which use throttling to reduce heat dissipation (Most desktop-P4 based notebooks do) you also have to be at the same height above sea level.
So at the next/. benchmark discussion we have one extra argument why benchmarks suck.
Read the Veritest Paper! They have dedicated several pages to the Specs of the Dell Systems used. Doubting tests because you are to lazy to read the provided descriptions is silly.
B) everyone knows how buggy and crappy GCC is on the PowerPC
Well then those results would be even better for Apple since it is so "buggy and crappy" care to elaborate?
According to IBM quite a few actually. Well it may suck but it is still better than the Alternatives (Exchange/Groupwise)
Full Acrobat is available for Linux. I've never had a crash or a problem.
Acrobat is only available for Windows and Mac. Acrobat Reader(!) is available for Unix.
Who the HELL do you know that uses PageMaker or FrameMaker? If so, they have much bigger problems than not having Linux versions available...
We use Framemaker exclusively for all our Technical Documentation our Books, Master Thesises etc. IMHO Word does suck big for such documents. With word you will never get a document which adheres even the basic typografic principles and it is therefore unusable for anything but the simplest tasks.
If you purchase software, and you accept the license (usually by opening the shrinkwrap or the CD case), you are bound to all its terms
This might be the case in the United States. Here in Germany (and in many other countries which have adopted similar law) you are not bound to those shrinkwrap licenses since you see them only after you have already bought the software.
If you make additions to a contract (and EULAs are such additions according to german law) both parties have to be able to see those additions before the contract is placed. Since this is rather seldom the case for EULAs these licenses are not even worth the paper they are printed on.
Seems to me like Apple is going to upgrade some of their Powerbooks in the near future. 15'' PBs are nearly sold out and are hard to get.
I have been waiting for a very long time now for Apple to upgrade the 15'' PB to an AI Model with Bluetooth and Airport Extreme. But now it won't probably be long until I get my PB and iPod. (My precious)
and of course it isn't likely that you'll burn your concrete home.
I have been a volunteer fire fighter for many years now and i assure you that your concrete home (in germany many homes are built from concrete) burns just as good as the wooden ones common in the US.
It's seldom the walls which burn first but rather the inventory such as furniture, tapestry or carpets. Since fires quite often reach temperatures of 1500 degrees celcius or above even concrete walls will fail you after the fire has burned for a longer time. (And the thousands of litres of water the fire brigade drops onto your house don't help much either;-))
We're about to build a house, and I'm planning on running inside-the-wall Ethernet / coax myself before the drywall goes on. Is there a guide / book / FM I can R out there that concentrates on this, particularly w/r/t what the NEC (the U.S. Nat'l Electrical Code) rules are, written so that a non-electrician can understand them?
I am not a citizen of the US so I do not know where to get a copy of aforementioned rules (although your local building authority might be a good start) but if you can afford the money then you could always charge an electrician with the wiring of your house. These days a lot of firms offer decent services for installing network cabeling.
So which countries are "most"? In the US and Italy at least the regulations are fairly open or even vary regionally
But Italy and the US do have regulations and laws regarding the use and installation of broadband cabeling as have many other countries. All I wanted to say was that one should first check the laws before doing the installation themselves because violating emv-regulations or other such laws might get very expensive when these violations are discovered by the authorities.
And when faulty wiring disturbs certain radio frequencies in the vicinity of your home this might be sooner than you think. (Although this obviously doesn't apply to our own cable company. It uses such old cable that it disturbs police radio frequencies in large parts of our area)
Also your info regarding Germany is not completely true. For renovations (I've just finished renovating a house in Germany) the requirements for work done by the owner of the house are different than those for a new installation by a professional. Furthermore if you are only running analog (ISDN I'm not sure) telephone cable it certainly isn't required to be shielded.
I was referring to twisted pair cable sorry if it was a bit misleading. Telefone, ISDN and other low bitrate connections are not required to be shielded. I was also not aware that those regulations differ if you install it yourself because for my new house had a very cvapable electrician with experience in the field of network cabeling.
Still, you are mostly right (I think). Wired solves more problems than it creates, in the long run, but some degree of DIY skill is involved to get a subtly neat installation.
This mostly depends on the size of the installation and the type of cable used. Also in most countries you have to adhere to certain regulations regarding in-house wiring.
In germany for example (where I live) it is not allowed to use unshielded cable for in-house-wiring (you may use unshielded cable for connecting your computer to the RJ45 jack but for everything which runs in the wall or covers distances > 10m you'll have to use shielded cable) and since shielded twisted pair is not trivial to install. (Atr least if you have to adhere to emv guidelines) I personally consider using broadband wireless connections.
I'd certainly prefer wired connections but don't underestimate the complexity involved in in-house-wiring if you have to adhere to emv guidelines and building codes. You also will have to consider the guidelines for deploying shielded cable. (You may only bend shielded cable to a certain degree, you have to pay attention to the transition between in-wall wiring and the wall jacks etc.)
2. Easily implementable in hardware. Especially the *royalty free* fixed point codec drastically reduces time-to-market... you can easily implement that in a $10 TI Fixed point DSP. MP3 too is easy to implement, but now you have to pay fraunhauffer royalty for each decoder you make!!
The OGG fixed point encoder uses over 100 kb worth of lookup tables which pretty much disqualifies it for use on most slower DSPs (with 64 Kb Ram/Rom) One of the reasons why most current mp3 players will never support OGG. I don't know if "$10 TI DSPs" have that much memory.
Care to tell me the model number?
AFAIK mp3 uses less resources. Alas i don't know how much AAC uses.
BTW its Fraunhofer a german research institute (Fraunhofer Society ) and you won't pay Fraunhofer royalties because mp3 was a thomson multimedia sponsored reasearch effort. (The Fraunhofer Society does sponsored research and developement for companies and government institutions). So you'd actually pay thomson royalties
Apple doesn't take GPL software and many OS developers (not smart for them) still license their software under BSDL.
It's so naive to think that Apple will contribute back when the license encourages the opposite!
Without getting too philosophical about open source licenses in general i think you misunderstand why the BSD license was created in the first place.
At the time that the BSD License was created universities and other government funded institutions were not allowed to profit from projects which were payed with tax money. (With the intent that publicly funded science has to stay in the public domain) This has changed in the last twenty years but the intent of the BSD License was and always will be to encourage the widespread use of ceratin technology.
Everybody may use BSD Licensed technology in the way they seem fit. The GPL is far more restricted in that matter (every change has to be made publicly available again) One might argue that the GPL might be the better license for the purpose stated above but it's not. The main reason being the restriction to publish the source code even if your software just uses a tiny fraction of GPLd code.
But many large software projects will not publish sourcecode, not because it might hurt their business but because licensing patented technology may restrict the ability to publish sourcecode.
So even if they wanted to use GPL licensed software legal mumbo jumbo might keep them from doing so.
To make a long story short. the GPL and The BSDL realize different philosophies:
The GPL forces the publication of sourcecode so that the original developer may profit the most (by making the changes publicly available even if contributing to the original project might not be the intent of the other party) This might discourage derivative works because every enhancement automatically benefits the original author and might make competing products less attractive.
The BSDL wants to encourage the adoption of technologies by not restricting the way people use it. So the BSDL wants to propagate technology and not the changes to it. It was never the intent of the BSDL to benefit the original Inventor of the code but everyone else so if a company doesnt want to contribute it is their right to do so and anybody who uses the BSDL must live with these consequences.
So if i want that everybody and their friends use my super duper new software (even if it is this mean old software company from redmond) i would go with the BSDL knowing exactly that the result might benefit others more than me.
If i want to enact more control over my software and the way it is used i would use the GPL knowing that every improvement will benefit my own project but might hinder adoption of my technology by other parties.
So both licenses have their strengths and weaknesses it all depends on what my personal goals are when choosing one over the other.
I would consider the minor GPL violations the least of mplayers problems. What about the numerous video and audio formats they use without proper licensing?
Even if everything is reverse engineered then it would only save them from infringing on copyright but they would still have to pay the technology owners which means that at least mpeg-1 and mpeg-2 are out of the question ($ 2,50 per copy licensing fees). The same holds for several other formats which are not covered under a non commercial license.
I might get something wrong here but why can mplayer (and xine for that matter) use mpeg-1/2 divx, mp3 vivo and several other formats (including wma/wmv) without paying royalties to the respective copyright and patent holders and why doesn't anybody care about this?
May somebody please enlighten me about this issue?
"Unfortunately the fact that I can't cd/usr/ports; make upgrade (or something similar) and have everything upgraded is why I don't use it on my workstation"
A "portupgrade -a" (if you have installed portupgrade) might do the trick.
When an OS doesn't use a CPU feature (4M pages, using it just for the kernel doesn't count), that doesn't make the hacker better, it makes the OS not taking advantage of all CPU features (and therefore not running into the related CPU bugs...).
Read again. The Posting states that "I've worked on code that enables 4M pages on other memory
used in FreeBSD, that had this problem, but only if you
were really stupid in your allocation mechanism."
He encountered the Problem in his _own_ code and fixed it there. He also states: "There's a workaround for this problem which is fairly
trivial to implement in software, and should probably be
done when 4M pages are enabled, if you are using an Athlon,
and are adding 4M pages." He very clearly states that 4M pages are not currently supported in FreeBSD (should be in 4.5) but that a workaround exists. (And it is _not_ deactivating the 4M paging as in linux).
So although they are not affected by the Bug because they do not use that particular feature at least they know that it exists and they do have a workaround ready _now_ so that by the time this feature is implemented this bug will not cause any troubles. Which is more than I can say about the Linux hackers, which don't even bother to read the docs provided by AMD.
Here is a Posting from Terry Lambert on the FreeBSD -stable Mailing List regarding this "Bug".
Maybe it sheds some light on this issue.
> Recently I found Linux 2.4 kernel is affected by the
> bug of extended paging in AMD Athlon through the
> following link. I don't know if FreeBSD is also
> affected.
>
> http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2002-01 -21-001-20-NW-KN
I am well aware of this bug.
It does not affect FreeBSD, which only uses 4M pages for
the first 4M of the kernel itself.
I've worked on code that enables 4M pages on other memory
used in FreeBSD, that had this problem, but only if you
were really stupid in your allocation mechanism.
There's a workaround for this problem which is fairly
trivial to implement in software, and should probably be
done when 4M pages are enabled, if you are using an Athlon,
and are adding 4M pages.
[...]
In any case, this will not be a problem for FreeBSD, and is
only a problem for Linux because of the strange way they
initialize things.
Re:The real reason the Euro is BAD NEWS
on
The Euro
·
· Score: 1
The control of this currency rests with the German Government.
You misquoted me. The sentence above was not by me but by a previous poster.
There is no such thing as a bundesbank.
Actually the Deutsche Bundesbank [bundesbank.de] still exists and I think there are no plans to close it.
To clarify it the Bundesbank still exists it just doesn't control the german currency or the german financial market anymore. Conrol of Interest Rates, issuing of currency etc. got transferred to the EZB. The Bundesbank has still some purposes however like being the german Zentralbank but the great power asociated with it is gone. So in a sense there is no such Thing as THE Bundesbank anymore:-)
Re:The real reason the Euro is BAD NEWS
on
The Euro
·
· Score: 1
But certainly Germany is economically the most powerful of the participating countries and tries to get the financial politics under its control. The "stability rules" which all participating countries have to follow, were forced upon them by the export-oriented politics of Germany.
The stability rules ARE important for ensuring the stability of the Euro currency. Actually now our german government tries to "weaken" those criteria because due to the recession they do not think they can keep up with them. But with no avail.
This is just a hint, how german dominated the EU is. I'm german myself, so I can say this unbiased.
the EU is NOT german dominated but germany wants to get more control because they have sacrificed the most of their power and also pay the most money of all EU members. Your comparison with Nazi Germany is inappropriate and incorrect. Nobody invaded another country and forced anybody to join the EU.
Every country had a choice and joined by their own free will. Those countries of whom you refer adopted the Mark or the Euro not because it was forced on them but because it is the one of the stabelest currencies second only to the US Dollar.
I cannot see any signs of a perceived german imperialism as you do.
Re:The real reason the Euro is BAD NEWS
on
The Euro
·
· Score: 1
Its all pretty insane looking from over here (USA). We would never allow another group of people control the dollar, no matter what the incentive was.
But at the same time you tolerate that the dollar is in many countries virtually the only usable currency and therefore YOU are controlling their economy. I do not agree with my fellow countyman but even if it were so then the US were not very different from us Germans. And germany does NOT control the Euro we actually relinquished control of the european financial market by sacrificing our "Bundesbank"
The ECB may be physically located in Frankfurt but we do not have more control of it than california controls the US federal bank.
Re:The real reason the Euro is BAD NEWS
on
The Euro
·
· Score: 1
The control of this currency rests with the German Government. Unlike the presidency of the EEC, which rotates so that each country can have a turn at running Europe, the control of the Euro is fixed with the Germans.
This is just plain wrong. We Germans do NOT control the euro. Actually in Order to introduce the euro we had to sacrifice our control of the european financial market by sacrificing the "Bundesbank". There is no such thing as the "Bundesbank" anymore. The ECB may be physically located in Franfurt a.M. but we do not control it. Every member state of the EU can appoint members of the board.
The UK is the most powerful economy in Europe, and its government is clearly the best at managing an economy. If anyone should be running the Euro, fixing the interest rates and running the inevitable European tax system, its the Bank of England, and NOT the Bundesbank.
There is no such thing as a bundesbank. Apart from that ROTFL.
That is precisely what is happening in Europe. This is totally wrong, and everyone here is being brainwashed into accepting the Euro because it is superficially convenient.
You should stop reading the newspapers with the big headlines and switch to publications which actually don't brainwash their readers.
Kohl went to Mitterand and asked if Germany could reunify. Mitterand agreed if and only if Germany would agree to the Euro. It was a fait accompli from that point onwards and the Brits weren't involved.
Germany and France always were the leading forces behind the single currency movement. Not just since the reunification of germany.
Cooperation began in the late fifties when Germany and France agreed on the "Montanunion" which was an early kind of economic pact. It later evolved into the European Community (EC) and then into the European Union as more and more european countries "joined in" (Note the first was only an economical "union" while the latter is also a political one)
Many people have the misconception that EU policy is just another way to "get back" at Great Britain. And that France and Germany are using their political influence in the EU for just that purpose. The driving force behind the european unity Movement was vastly different. Adenauer along with his french counterpart had understood that is was only possible to prevent future wars when the european countries moved closer together.
The prime reason for the last three european wars were the animosities between Germany and France which reach as far back as the seventeenth century.
Since Germany and France were competing for dominance of the continent (which the UK abandoned for India and Africa) "political differences" were only natural and the struggle between France and Germany led to the war of 1848 which was won by Germany.
At the End of WW1 the French took revenge by very nearly ruining Germany with the unreasonable demands of reparation in the "Treaty of Versailles".
This led to a huge economic downturn with unemployment rates of more than 30% an ideal situation for Hitler to take control. He used the german animosity against france (the germans felt they were very unfairly treated) to gain power and the support of the german population and promised them to end the perceived injustice of the Treaty. As anyone knows this led to WW2.
To make a long speech short the heads of state felt that the only way to end all those grudges, animosities and the hatred which had built up since naerly half a millenium was to try to bring europe closer together. Naturally the first treaties were between Germany and France because they bore more grudges against each other than against GB. Also in the late fifties Great Britain did not care much for either Germany (which even today the british popular press names "Krauts") or France.
The political powers in Great Britain were never in much favour of the Unity Movement so it is unfair to say they were intentionally left out, they just didn't care much.
The UK has to be very careful. The London financial market is very valuable to us British and the French/Germans are itching to get their hands on the trade. Once the UK are in Euroland it is inevitable there will be shift in markets to Frankfurt where the ECB is based. Althoug it is so typical I as a German find it very appaling for you to presume that we just "are itching to get [our] hands on the trade".
I also do not like the continuous whining about how much you Brtions may lose when joining the Euro. We Germans have sacrificed our "Bundesbank" which was virtually THE most influencial financial institution in Europe (btw this was the requirement for the Reunification. For France to allow it we had to sacrifice our control of the financial market in Europe by joining the Euro AND handing over control to the ECB). We also sacrificed one of the most stable and powerful currencies for the Euro.
To assume that this has only something to do with Animosities against Britain is Hybris.
The whole concept of the european union is not about "our" Frakfurt is as much part of europe as london but if you only think about the perceived power that you personally lose then it is maybe better that you will not join the rest of us. Since this is the kind of thinking which the unity movement is trying to abolish.
Curiously enough I *think* I would vote YES to the Euro, but with great trepidation because I think the UK will lose a lot more than it gains, in the short term - and there is always this nagging doubt that we will get stitched up by the Franco/German/Italian axis. Naturally this axis regards the British as being their typical difficult selves - not joining the party and all that - but this is because we are expected to do it their way, and in truth they have avoided the tough ecomomic questions This is just the propaganda of your british tabloid press. Were it not for Murdoch-controlled newspapers Major would have signed the "Maastricht Treaty" long ago. (Papers like the sun flamed him to hell for actually proposing to "sacrify the pound" and they cost him the election) Most of the current economic problems in the UK stem from not adopting the euro. (Like the threat of several large companies to leave for the continent because the pound is hugly overrated) Even Blair which is "euro friendly" cannot govern against papers like "The Sun" much like Schröder has to be careful of the "Bild-Zeitung". But what do you have to expect from newspapers which use swear-words and clearly racistic comments on their front page?
Have you seen Apocalypse Now? It's a movie adaptation of Heart of Darkness. The making-of movie is even called Hearts of Darkness. Some people think it's the Best Movie Ever (that was before having seen LotR), I don't, but anyway, it will give you a better idea of what Conrad was trying to accomplish. Something about how power corrupts
And the 3 hour long Redux makes it even better. If it is really the BEST film ever is debatable, (It comes down to personal preference) but it left me amazed and stunned and conveyed the cruelty of war better than any other movie I have ever seen .
Compared to "Apoicalypse now" even Saving private ryan seems like the work of an amateur. (It is still better than the thin red line which just plain sucks).
To get back OT, I made the mistake of never reading the LotR until about half a year ago. I have read fantasy and science fiction literature since I was eight years old (I am now 25) and have read many of those works now considered as classics in the genre so naturally I didn't like LotR much. Nearly everything he writes in his books I have read in countless others, some were nearly ripoffs (like "Memory sorrow and thorn") and others merely took elements of tolkiens fiction to use in their own works. It is still a good read but I would not list it as my favourite book.
The movie is great though. But I could also image the hoard of die-hard Tolkien Fans flame the movie because it is not true to the letter(and some even thought Tom Bombadil had to be in threre) not taking into consideration that a movie is not and cannot be like the book because it is limited in its ability to tell stories in certain ways but can on the other hand do things which no book can ever do. In this respect I have not seen a better book adaptation and it is a must for every movie enthusiast. (but maybe not for every Tolkien fan)
Oh how nice of them to not charge him if he sells out. But they shouldn't have arrested him in the first place.
In the future does every foreigner need to consult a lawyer before travelling to the U.S.? Since anybody might be arrested there for crimes which might not even be illegal in his country and might not even be committed in the U.S.?
Is U.S. law now world law? Many questions about this case remain unanswered. The only thing I know is that I will now no longer be able to travel to the United States without being a little bit frightened that just by being an Open Source Programmer and only abiding to my own country's law might bring me an arrest warrant and imprisonment in the U.S.
Slashdot Mirror
I know that is is probably a troll but i just had to reply to this.
I recently considered buying a new computer and compared several offers on the X86 side and on the Apple side. PCs are usually only cheaper than Macs if you buy the components and assemble them yourself. (Assuming of course that you do not account for the time you need to do that)
Of course nearly every computer reseller (like Dell or Gateway) has boxes which are cheaper than even the low-end Macs. But if you try to assemble a machine that has similar features than a Powermac for example you usually end up paying nearly the same price. This is especially true for Laptops.
The only two brands who had laptops with similar features than than a Powerbook 15'' that were cheaper were Acer (with the Travelmate 803) and Asus (M6N). Every other brand (including Dell and HP) were similiar priced once you configured them to include the same features as the powerbook (80 GB harddisc, 5120 MB ram, radeon 9600, 15'' 16:9 display, DVD burner).IBM even exceeded the price of the powerbook by nearly 1500 Euros. (I am comparing german prices, ymmv)
It is possible to get a pc which is cheaper than the cheapest Apple box but it is much harder to get a brand name pc whith the same features as an Apple box and still be cheaper.
Regards
Christian
Try www.mac-kauf.de for a comprehensive list of online retailers in germany
Which add-on options do you mean? The iPod iSight and similar add-ons are all available for the student prices.
Regards
Jeff
If I have read the Article correctly the BSA was accompanied by armed marshals and therefore must have had a search warrant for the offices of Ernie Ball. What I do not understand is why the BSA even could get such warrants.
In Germany where I live only the district attorney can issue such warrants and only the police or federal agencies may search buildings using that warrant. The person(s) who made the allegations may not even be present during the search.
And since shrink-wrap licences are (still) illegal in germany the BSA would not even get the district attorney to issue such a warrant since only common contractual law applies to software purchases.
So they can go to my office but I don't have to let them in.
Giving some pressure group federal powers seems a bit odd to me.
So at the next /. benchmark discussion we have one extra argument why benchmarks suck.
Jeff
Well then those results would be even better for Apple since it is so "buggy and crappy" care to elaborate?
Jeff
According to IBM quite a few actually. Well it may suck but it is still better than the Alternatives (Exchange/Groupwise)
Acrobat is only available for Windows and Mac. Acrobat Reader(!) is available for Unix.
We use Framemaker exclusively for all our Technical Documentation our Books, Master Thesises etc. IMHO Word does suck big for such documents. With word you will never get a document which adheres even the basic typografic principles and it is therefore unusable for anything but the simplest tasks.
If you make additions to a contract (and EULAs are such additions according to german law) both parties have to be able to see those additions before the contract is placed. Since this is rather seldom the case for EULAs these licenses are not even worth the paper they are printed on.
Regards Christian
Seems to me like Apple is going to upgrade some of their Powerbooks in the near future. 15'' PBs are nearly sold out and are hard to get.
I have been waiting for a very long time now for Apple to upgrade the 15'' PB to an AI Model with Bluetooth and Airport Extreme. But now it won't probably be long until I get my PB and iPod. (My precious)
Regards
Christian
I have been a volunteer fire fighter for many years now and i assure you that your concrete home (in germany many homes are built from concrete) burns just as good as the wooden ones common in the US.
It's seldom the walls which burn first but rather the inventory such as furniture, tapestry or carpets. Since fires quite often reach temperatures of 1500 degrees celcius or above even concrete walls will fail you after the fire has burned for a longer time. (And the thousands of litres of water the fire brigade drops onto your house don't help much either ;-))
regards Jeff
I am not a citizen of the US so I do not know where to get a copy of aforementioned rules (although your local building authority might be a good start) but if you can afford the money then you could always charge an electrician with the wiring of your house. These days a lot of firms offer decent services for installing network cabeling.
Regards
Jeff
And when faulty wiring disturbs certain radio frequencies in the vicinity of your home this might be sooner than you think. (Although this obviously doesn't apply to our own cable company. It uses such old cable that it disturbs police radio frequencies in large parts of our area)
I was referring to twisted pair cable sorry if it was a bit misleading. Telefone, ISDN and other low bitrate connections are not required to be shielded. I was also not aware that those regulations differ if you install it yourself because for my new house had a very cvapable electrician with experience in the field of network cabeling.
Regards Jeff
This mostly depends on the size of the installation and the type of cable used. Also in most countries you have to adhere to certain regulations regarding in-house wiring.
In germany for example (where I live) it is not allowed to use unshielded cable for in-house-wiring (you may use unshielded cable for connecting your computer to the RJ45 jack but for everything which runs in the wall or covers distances > 10m you'll have to use shielded cable) and since shielded twisted pair is not trivial to install. (Atr least if you have to adhere to emv guidelines) I personally consider using broadband wireless connections.
I'd certainly prefer wired connections but don't underestimate the complexity involved in in-house-wiring if you have to adhere to emv guidelines and building codes. You also will have to consider the guidelines for deploying shielded cable. (You may only bend shielded cable to a certain degree, you have to pay attention to the transition between in-wall wiring and the wall jacks etc.)
Regards Jeff (been there done that)
AFAIK mp3 uses less resources. Alas i don't know how much AAC uses.
BTW its Fraunhofer a german research institute (Fraunhofer Society ) and you won't pay Fraunhofer royalties because mp3 was a thomson multimedia sponsored reasearch effort. (The Fraunhofer Society does sponsored research and developement for companies and government institutions). So you'd actually pay thomson royalties
Regards
Christian
At the time that the BSD License was created universities and other government funded institutions were not allowed to profit from projects which were payed with tax money. (With the intent that publicly funded science has to stay in the public domain) This has changed in the last twenty years but the intent of the BSD License was and always will be to encourage the widespread use of ceratin technology.
Everybody may use BSD Licensed technology in the way they seem fit. The GPL is far more restricted in that matter (every change has to be made publicly available again) One might argue that the GPL might be the better license for the purpose stated above but it's not. The main reason being the restriction to publish the source code even if your software just uses a tiny fraction of GPLd code.
But many large software projects will not publish sourcecode, not because it might hurt their business but because licensing patented technology may restrict the ability to publish sourcecode.
So even if they wanted to use GPL licensed software legal mumbo jumbo might keep them from doing so.
To make a long story short. the GPL and The BSDL realize different philosophies:
The GPL forces the publication of sourcecode so that the original developer may profit the most (by making the changes publicly available even if contributing to the original project might not be the intent of the other party) This might discourage derivative works because every enhancement automatically benefits the original author and might make competing products less attractive.
The BSDL wants to encourage the adoption of technologies by not restricting the way people use it. So the BSDL wants to propagate technology and not the changes to it. It was never the intent of the BSDL to benefit the original Inventor of the code but everyone else so if a company doesnt want to contribute it is their right to do so and anybody who uses the BSDL must live with these consequences.
So if i want that everybody and their friends use my super duper new software (even if it is this mean old software company from redmond) i would go with the BSDL knowing exactly that the result might benefit others more than me.
If i want to enact more control over my software and the way it is used i would use the GPL knowing that every improvement will benefit my own project but might hinder adoption of my technology by other parties.
So both licenses have their strengths and weaknesses it all depends on what my personal goals are when choosing one over the other.
Regards Jeff
I would consider the minor GPL violations the least of mplayers problems. What about the numerous video and audio formats they use without proper licensing?
Even if everything is reverse engineered then it would only save them from infringing on copyright but they would still have to pay the technology owners which means that at least mpeg-1 and mpeg-2 are out of the question ($ 2,50 per copy licensing fees). The same holds for several other formats which are not covered under a non commercial license.
I might get something wrong here but why can mplayer (and xine for that matter) use mpeg-1/2 divx, mp3 vivo and several other formats (including wma/wmv) without paying royalties to the respective copyright and patent holders and why doesn't anybody care about this?
May somebody please enlighten me about this issue?
Regards
Jeff
A "portupgrade -a" (if you have installed portupgrade) might do the trick.
Read again. The Posting states that "I've worked on code that enables 4M pages on other memory
used in FreeBSD, that had this problem, but only if you
were really stupid in your allocation mechanism."
He encountered the Problem in his _own_ code and fixed it there. He also states: "There's a workaround for this problem which is fairly
trivial to implement in software, and should probably be
done when 4M pages are enabled, if you are using an Athlon,
and are adding 4M pages." He very clearly states that 4M pages are not currently supported in FreeBSD (should be in 4.5) but that a workaround exists. (And it is _not_ deactivating the 4M paging as in linux).
So although they are not affected by the Bug because they do not use that particular feature at least they know that it exists and they do have a workaround ready _now_ so that by the time this feature is implemented this bug will not cause any troubles. Which is more than I can say about the Linux hackers, which don't even bother to read the docs provided by AMD.
Maybe it sheds some light on this issue.
The control of this currency rests with the German Government.
:-)
You misquoted me. The sentence above was not by me but by a previous poster.
There is no such thing as a bundesbank.
Actually the Deutsche Bundesbank [bundesbank.de] still exists and I think there are no plans to close it.
To clarify it the Bundesbank still exists it just doesn't control the german currency or the german financial market anymore. Conrol of Interest Rates, issuing of currency etc. got transferred to the EZB. The Bundesbank has still some purposes however like being the german Zentralbank but the great power asociated with it is gone. So in a sense there is no such Thing as THE Bundesbank anymore
But certainly Germany is economically the most powerful of the participating countries and tries to get the financial politics under its control. The "stability rules" which all participating countries have to follow, were forced upon them by the export-oriented politics of Germany.
The stability rules ARE important for ensuring the stability of the Euro currency. Actually now our german government tries to "weaken" those criteria because due to the recession they do not think they can keep up with them. But with no avail.
This is just a hint, how german dominated the EU is. I'm german myself, so I can say this unbiased.
the EU is NOT german dominated but germany wants to get more control because they have sacrificed the most of their power and also pay the most money of all EU members. Your comparison with Nazi Germany is inappropriate and incorrect. Nobody invaded another country and forced anybody to join the EU.
Every country had a choice and joined by their own free will. Those countries of whom you refer adopted the Mark or the Euro not because it was forced on them but because it is the one of the stabelest currencies second only to the US Dollar.
I cannot see any signs of a perceived german imperialism as you do.
Its all pretty insane looking from over here (USA). We would never allow another group of people control the dollar, no matter what the incentive was.
But at the same time you tolerate that the dollar is in many countries virtually the only usable currency and therefore YOU are controlling their economy. I do not agree with my fellow countyman but even if it were so then the US were not very different from us Germans. And germany does NOT control the Euro we actually relinquished control of the european financial market by sacrificing our "Bundesbank"
The ECB may be physically located in Frankfurt but we do not have more control of it than california controls the US federal bank.
The control of this currency rests with the German Government. Unlike the presidency of the EEC, which rotates so that each country can have a turn at running Europe, the control of the Euro is fixed with the Germans.
This is just plain wrong. We Germans do NOT control the euro. Actually in Order to introduce the euro we had to sacrifice our control of the european financial market by sacrificing the "Bundesbank". There is no such thing as the "Bundesbank" anymore. The ECB may be physically located in Franfurt a.M. but we do not control it. Every member state of the EU can appoint members of the board.
The UK is the most powerful economy in Europe, and its government is clearly the best at managing an economy. If anyone should be running the Euro, fixing the interest rates and running the inevitable European tax system, its the Bank of England, and NOT the Bundesbank.
There is no such thing as a bundesbank. Apart from that ROTFL.
That is precisely what is happening in Europe. This is totally wrong, and everyone here is being brainwashed into accepting the Euro because it is superficially convenient.
You should stop reading the newspapers with the big headlines and switch to publications which actually don't brainwash their readers.
Germany and France always were the leading forces behind the single currency movement. Not just since the reunification of germany.
Cooperation began in the late fifties when Germany and France agreed on the "Montanunion" which was an early kind of economic pact. It later evolved into the European Community (EC) and then into the European Union as more and more european countries "joined in" (Note the first was only an economical "union" while the latter is also a political one)
Many people have the misconception that EU policy is just another way to "get back" at Great Britain. And that France and Germany are using their political influence in the EU for just that purpose. The driving force behind the european unity Movement was vastly different. Adenauer along with his french counterpart had understood that is was only possible to prevent future wars when the european countries moved closer together.
The prime reason for the last three european wars were the animosities between Germany and France which reach as far back as the seventeenth century.
Since Germany and France were competing for dominance of the continent (which the UK abandoned for India and Africa) "political differences" were only natural and the struggle between France and Germany led to the war of 1848 which was won by Germany.
At the End of WW1 the French took revenge by very nearly ruining Germany with the unreasonable demands of reparation in the "Treaty of Versailles".
This led to a huge economic downturn with unemployment rates of more than 30% an ideal situation for Hitler to take control. He used the german animosity against france (the germans felt they were very unfairly treated) to gain power and the support of the german population and promised them to end the perceived injustice of the Treaty. As anyone knows this led to WW2.
To make a long speech short the heads of state felt that the only way to end all those grudges, animosities and the hatred which had built up since naerly half a millenium was to try to bring europe closer together. Naturally the first treaties were between Germany and France because they bore more grudges against each other than against GB. Also in the late fifties Great Britain did not care much for either Germany (which even today the british popular press names "Krauts") or France.
The political powers in Great Britain were never in much favour of the Unity Movement so it is unfair to say they were intentionally left out, they just didn't care much.
The UK has to be very careful. The London financial market is very valuable to us British and the French/Germans are itching to get their hands on the trade. Once the UK are in Euroland it is inevitable there will be shift in markets to Frankfurt where the ECB is based.
Althoug it is so typical I as a German find it very appaling for you to presume that we just "are itching to get [our] hands on the trade".
I also do not like the continuous whining about how much you Brtions may lose when joining the Euro. We Germans have sacrificed our "Bundesbank" which was virtually THE most influencial financial institution in Europe (btw this was the requirement for the Reunification. For France to allow it we had to sacrifice our control of the financial market in Europe by joining the Euro AND handing over control to the ECB). We also sacrificed one of the most stable and powerful currencies for the Euro.
To assume that this has only something to do with Animosities against Britain is Hybris.
The whole concept of the european union is not about "our" Frakfurt is as much part of europe as london but if you only think about the perceived power that you personally lose then it is maybe better that you will not join the rest of us. Since this is the kind of thinking which the unity movement is trying to abolish.
Curiously enough I *think* I would vote YES to the Euro, but with great trepidation because I think the UK will lose a lot more than it gains, in the short term - and there is always this nagging doubt that we will get stitched up by the Franco/German/Italian axis. Naturally this axis regards the British as being their typical difficult selves - not joining the party and all that - but this is because we are expected to do it their way, and in truth they have avoided the tough ecomomic questions
This is just the propaganda of your british tabloid press. Were it not for Murdoch-controlled newspapers Major would have signed the "Maastricht Treaty" long ago. (Papers like the sun flamed him to hell for actually proposing to "sacrify the pound" and they cost him the election) Most of the current economic problems in the UK stem from not adopting the euro. (Like the threat of several large companies to leave for the continent because the pound is hugly overrated) Even Blair which is "euro friendly" cannot govern against papers like "The Sun" much like Schröder has to be careful of the "Bild-Zeitung". But what do you have to expect from newspapers which use swear-words and clearly racistic comments on their front page?
And the 3 hour long Redux makes it even better. If it is really the BEST film ever is debatable, (It comes down to personal preference) but it left me amazed and stunned and conveyed the cruelty of war better than any other movie I have ever seen .
Compared to "Apoicalypse now" even Saving private ryan seems like the work of an amateur. (It is still better than the thin red line which just plain sucks).
To get back OT, I made the mistake of never reading the LotR until about half a year ago. I have read fantasy and science fiction literature since I was eight years old (I am now 25) and have read many of those works now considered as classics in the genre so naturally I didn't like LotR much. Nearly everything he writes in his books I have read in countless others, some were nearly ripoffs (like "Memory sorrow and thorn") and others merely took elements of tolkiens fiction to use in their own works. It is still a good read but I would not list it as my favourite book.
The movie is great though. But I could also image the hoard of die-hard Tolkien Fans flame the movie because it is not true to the letter(and some even thought Tom Bombadil had to be in threre) not taking into consideration that a movie is not and cannot be like the book because it is limited in its ability to tell stories in certain ways but can on the other hand do things which no book can ever do. In this respect I have not seen a better book adaptation and it is a must for every movie enthusiast. (but maybe not for every Tolkien fan)
Jeff
Oh how nice of them to not charge him if he sells out. But they shouldn't have arrested him in the first place.
In the future does every foreigner need to consult a lawyer before travelling to the U.S.? Since anybody might be arrested there for crimes which might not even be illegal in his country and might not even be committed in the U.S.?
Is U.S. law now world law? Many questions about this case remain unanswered. The only thing I know is that I will now no longer be able to travel to the United States without being a little bit frightened that just by being an Open Source Programmer and only abiding to my own country's law might bring me an arrest warrant and imprisonment in the U.S.
Jeff